Seven Years
by valonqar
Summary: A story of life, love, and the tragedy of growing up.  Rose/Scorpius


_**First year**_

Rose Weasley is nothing if not cautious, a trait she acquired from her neurotic mother and completely careless father. It is a trait she prides herself on, her ability to know when something is dangerous, reckless, or just plain stupid. So when she sees the blonde haired boy with the smug smile and the mischievous eyes enter the compartment she has specifically claimed for her and her family, she is immediately wary of him.

She stares at him unabashedly, and when he looks at her as if she's crazy she makes no effort to hide the fact that she just might be. It's no matter - it's not as if she knows this boy anyways, and she has no desire of getting to know him. He looks too much like her cousin Albus, far too happy with himself and far too convinced that he's going to be able to walk all over her. Albus learned his lesson early on in life, of course, but Rose thinks it may be harder to teach it to this boy. Eleven-year-old boys are terminally stubborn, her mum always said, and she likes to think that to be true.

"You feeling alright?" he asks her, and she identifies the mocking in his voice right away. She's grown up with a brother and two male cousins - Rose knows when she's being made fun of, friendly or not.

"Perfectly well, thank you." A snide smile is accompanied with her words, and she can't help but notice the flash of amusement in his eyes. _Wonderful._ "But unfortunately you can't sit here. Both of my cousins are coming, plus James' second year friends, and I don't think they want some strange first year boy sitting in their seats." He looks slightly shocked now, although the amusement is still there, thinly veiled beneath his surprise.

She almost expects him to put up a fight. She almost wants him too, because she has no idea where her blasted cousins are, and it's better to be amused than to be waiting alone.

But instead he simply smiles at her, gives her a brief nod, and exits the compartment without another blasted word.

James, Albus, and James' weird friends Lysander and Lorcan enter not moments later, and her eldest cousin gives her a curious look. "Who was that bloke who just left? The one whose hair looks like somebody painted it white?"

Rose laughs, shaking her head, although she can't help but wish she knew the answer.

_**Second Year**_

She's twelve years old, and already she's top of her class. There's no denying it - Rose Weasley is her mother's daughter, through and through.

_He's _fairly close behind her, though, the boy from the train not a year ago. She's learned his name by now, Scorpius Malfoy, and it's such a pretentious sounding name that she decides she doesn't like him just because of it.

Well, not _just_. He's still got the smug smile that gives her the shivers, and those eyes as if he's staring right into her soul, and is genuinely amused by what he sees. It's as if he's always laughing at some sort of inside joke that she should know about, but for the life of her she can't figure out what it is. He's dreadfully popular, too, a fact which she'll never quite understand, and now that they're twelve the girls in her year are starting to discover boys - and most importantly, discover Scorpius Malfoy.

She doesn't think she'll ever understand it. He's not particularily good-looking or anything, and his personality could use a little bit of ironing out. Sure, he's kinda witty and sometimes he makes a funny joke, but other than that he's rude and snobbish, a brat in every sense of the word. According to her mother it's a trait passed down through the generations of her family, and Rose is inclined to believe it.

But the worst part of all is that it's nearly an hour into their potions class, and he won't stop staring at her.

It's infuriating, really. At first Rose thought she was imagining it, but then Albus noticed it too, and he seemed just as uncomfortable about it as she did. "Ehrm, Rosie?" her cousin whispered from beside her, a look of worry on her face. "Did you do something to piss Scorpius off? Because he won't stop looking at you, and it's kinda freaking me out."

She turned around in her desk, and sure enough, Malfoy's eyes were firmly trained on her own. But instead of scowling, or smirking, or giving her some kind of rude gesture, he simply smiled, gaze unwavering.

Grimacing, the girl turned back around to face the front, pointedly ignoring the curious looks her cousin was giving her, and the envious looks coming from the rest of the girls in her year. She had known it from that first time they had met on the train, and she knew it now. There was no question about it - something was very wrong with Scorpius Malfoy.

_**Third Year**_

Hogsmeade, Rose had decided, was not all it was cracked up to be.

For one, it was bloody cold outside. Not that she really had a problem with the cold usually, but when one was forced to be walking around outside everywhere for an entire day, a little sunshine never hurt. She supposed she could have dressed warmer, but all of her winter clothes were hand-me-downs from Victorie and Dominique, and horribly pink. They looked lovely on her blonde cousins, she was sure, but Rose's hair was an auburn tangle of curls that made it look like someone had electrocuted her, and she was certain the color would be less than flattering.

It also didn't help that all of her friends were bizarrely obsessed with Madame Puddifoot's, and as a thirteen-year-old with zero interest in boys or romance, Rose had decided that she would not set a foot inside the gaudy shop.

Because really, who could be interested in that place? There was so much pink that the girl thought she might go blind, and everything was so lacy and disgusting that she was certain the person who designed it must have been absolutely bonkers. Plus, the sight of young love was enough to make the young girl feel sick to her stomach, and she would really rather not see James snogging another one of his random girlfriends. That sight _alone _would be enough to make the girl actually vomit.

So Rose had parted ways with the group of giggling Gryffindors, making her way down the street until she found another pub that looked to be much more her type. Small, quaint, and completely lacking in the color pink, it was exactly everything that Rose wanted, and that included, after a quick sweep of the bar, Scorpius-free.

She still hadn't talked to him since their train ride in first year, and she still had no desire to. The only contact they had was when she caught him staring at her, and all he would do then was smile and continue on his way, completely unashamed of what he was doing. Rose simply couldn't understand _why_ he was doing it, because she really didn't think she was all that interesting. Perhaps the only interesting thing about her was her hair, although she was fairly certain that that was not the good kind of interesting, but rather the kind of interesting that people only called interesting because they had no other words to describe it without being rude.

Other than that she had her mind, but even then that didn't make sense. If Scorpius was interested in her smarts, he wouldn't be staring at her constantly. It wasn't as if he was able to look into her brain and see the inner workings of it, identify all of her thought processes in order to figure out exactly how she worked. No, he was clearly interested in her for some other reason, although for the life of her, she had no idea what it was.

So she was rather keen to avoid him at all costs, and since the pub appeared to be lacking of a blonde-haired, bright-eyed git, it seemed to be the perfect place to spend her afternoon in peace.

The table she had chosen at the back of the pub was perhaps not the cleanest one to be found, but it was the most isolated, and that was exactly what Rose wanted. For as charming as The Three Broomsticks appeared to be, it was still a pub, and that meant drunken men at every turn. As a young girl just coming of age, she found it was safest to keep herself hidden away in the back corner and talk to no one, choosing instead to pull out her copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ and read in silence. It was a book her mum had given her for her thirteenth birthday, and was finding it absolutely fascinating.

And that was how she remained, reading alone in the back of the pub, until a group of boisterous young boys entering drew her attention.

_Oh, Merlin no._

Fate really was cruel, she decided, for entering the pub was the one boy she had tried so desperately to avoid, followed closely by his band of troublemakers - her cousin Albus included. She didn't know when he and Scorpius had become friends, but since the beginning of that year they had been thick as thieves, making it harder and harder for Rose to avoid the boy.

But she had done a bloody brilliant job of it, not making contact with him once. She had a spotless track record for avoidance, and there was no way she was going to filthy it with this one blasted pub encounter. No way.

They were approaching the back of the pub, to her complete dismay. Rose knew she had to think, and fast, so she made up her mind to do what seemed to be the easiest and most foolproof solution - hide underneath the table and hope to Merlin that Scorpius didn't have the sudden urge to tie his shoe. She dove under the table as quickly as possible, holding her breath as their loud footsteps passed before her. It felt like an hour before they sat down in a nearby booth, but as soon as they did it seemed as if she was in the clear. Now all she had to do was crawl out of the pub unnoticed, but that would be the easy part.

Peaking her head out from under the table, she saw to her great relief that Scorpius was sitting with his back facing her. The only one who would be able to spot her was her cousin, but she was certain that he wouldn't rat her out. He knew of her distrust for his friend, and the only way he would call attention to her when she was clearly trying to avoid him was if he had gone completely bonkers within the two hours in which she had last talked to him.

No, she was completely and totally safe.

She made her way out from under the table slowly, careful not to make a sound that might draw attention to herself. It didn't take long for Albus to notice her, eyes going wide and a look of complete confusion on her face, but as soon as she pressed her finger to her lips and shook her head, sprawled out on the middle of the floor like some kind of spy, he seemed to get the message and turned back to Scorpius and the other boy, the one whose name she couldn't quite remember.

"So, that Quidditch game last night. Pretty crazy, right?" Oh, Merlin. Albus was trying to distract his Slytherin friends, she knew, but he was sounding awkward, and slightly like he was losing his mind. Rose had no choice - she had to hurry. Crawling as fast as she could without taking her eyes off of the ground, she found herself almost out of the pub...

Until she smashed head-first into the back of Scorpius' chair.

_Bloody brilliant._

Groaning, she flopped onto her back in the middle of the filthy floor, closing her eyes so as to shut out the flabbergasted stare of the boy above her. She expected him to laugh, or mock her, or say _something_, but instead he leaned down until his face was hovering just above hers, the uncomfortable closeness giving Rose no choice but to open her eyes and allow her brown eyes to meet his icy blue ones.

"You alright there, Weasley?" There it was, the mocking tone she had been expecting. However this time it was not so much unkind as it was masked with a veil of concern, and for a split second the girl allowed herself to think that he might actually care for his well being. But then his nameless friend, the one with the mean smile and the hard eyes whispered something in his ear, doubless about her, and Scorpius cracked up laughing.

Rose was fuming, pushing herself off of the ground and onto her feet, a furious look in her eyes. _This_ was why she avoided Scorpius Malfoy. Because he was a creep, and because he was an arse. She had heard some of the things him and Al talked about, been informed of his crude jokes and snide comments about the girls in her year, never her but always her best friends, like Izzy and Lea. All she wanted was to tear that horrible grin off of his face, smack him as hard as she could and teach him a real lesson, show him that he wasn't the boss.

Instead, however, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared him straight in the eyes, feeling a burst of anger that she had never quite know before - at least, not to that degree. "Oh, I'm perfectly fine, Malfoy. Just another unsuccessful attempt at staying as _far_ away from you as I possibly can." He looked completely shocked, but she didn't have time to revel in that small success.

She turned on her heel and walked out as fast as possible, deciding right then and there that she absolutely _hated _Hogsmeade.


End file.
